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Monday, April 15, 2013

I'm not a big fan of the headline Mother Jones chose for Kate Sheppard's piece on the GOP's ongoing attacks on reproductive freedom. "Progressives Advise GOP: Back Off On the War on Women" has the distinct flavor of concern trolling.
But it turns out to be accurate; two progressive groups have advised
the Republican Party to knock off the War on Women, because it's losing
them elections.

It was clear in both the lead up to
and the aftermath of the November 2012 election that Republican
candidates are not faring well among women voters. From Todd "Legitimate
Rape" Akin to Mitt Romney's 11-point loss among women voters, it became
painfully clear that the GOP has a lady problem. A new memo from a pair of liberal groups that pulls together some of the polling figures makes a strong case for paying more attention to this divide.

The memo, from Stephanie Schriock of EMILY’s List and NeeraTanden of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, notes that even the Republican National Committee's own post-election report
found that, "[Women] represent more than half the voting population in
the country, and our inability to win their votes is losing us
elections." But while Republicans have made some effort to soften the
party's positioning on issues like immigration and LGBT rights, the party has not moderated its stance on reproductive rights or other issues of interest to many women voters.

The memo points to the unprecedented attack on access to abortion underway in states like North Dakota and Arkansas, the 160 Republicans
that voted against the Violence Against Women Act at the federal level,
and the ongoing fights over both contraception coverage and cuts to the
federal family planning budget.

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"If the
GOP wants to move forward, help its image and win elections, it should
halt its embrace of extreme and out-of-touch policies that attack women
and their families," the memo states [pdf]. "Ending attacks on abortion rights in the states would be a start."

But
the fact is that these attacks on reproductive freedom hurt more than
just the shortsighted party launching them. They hurt the women in those
states. Even in the best-case scenario, 2014 isn't going to be a
Democratic march to victory in all 50 state legislatures and
governorships, getting them to realize their folly is at least worth a
shot. If we can get the GOP to stop attacking women's health, there
would be a lot less misery in this country.

And the issue is killing them.

"NARAL Pro-Choice America's polling right after the election found that Romney's view on abortion was the top reason
for voting against him that swing-voting women cited in their survey,"
Sheppard reports. "Planned Parenthood also used this issue to attack anti-choice politicians. Another post-election poll from Democracy Corps found that 33 percent of unmarried women listed the attacks on Planned Parenthood and women's preventative health services as a top reason for voting against Romney."

But it's not just reproductive rights, it's pretty much the GOP ideology in general that's hurting them with woman voters.

Women
outpace men in their support for stricter gun laws and immigration
reform that provides undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship,
data which becomes more salient in light of the Republican Party’s
effort to regain its footing with women voters after last fall’s
elections.

The gender gap is most pronounced when it comes to the
issue of stricter gun controls, legislation on which the Senate voted to
begin consideration this Thursday.

65% of women
(including 70% of self-identified mothers) want stricter laws on gun
sales, compared with 44% of men. The War on Women is spreading to gun
laws; not because Republicans are choosing to attack women over the
issue, but because women are the ones showing up to fight.

If
the GOP wants to win over more woman voters, they'll need to realize
that their problems with women are a lot deeper than just traditional
"women's issues" like reproductive health and freedom, equality, and
education. To listen solely on choice issues and to ignore everything
else would be to make the same mistake the party's currently making with
Latinos -- that is, assuming that they're single issue voters and that
immigration is all they care about. Each demographic has a wide
range of concerns and focusing solely one is to focus all your energy
on merely making a dent. It's a simpleminded 2D approach to intelligent people living in a complex 3D world.

Of
course, it's always possible that the GOP has just given up on women
for precisely these reasons. That they've seen the same numbers and have
decided they'd have to give up too much. Or that they think listening
to what women have to say is just "pandering." But this would be
foolish. The Republican base is rapidly shrinking and the focus has to be on expanding that base. They're going to have to give up some of their most cherished wedge issues.

If
not, then they resign themselves to becoming a party of crackpots,
cranks, and anachronisms. So far, that seems to be their preferred
route.